Conference sheds light on Cuban ballet

The ripple effect of the normalizing of relations between Cuba and the U.S. played out on a small stage this week in Sarasota, where a conference on the Ringling Museum campus brought together ballet teachers and pedagogues from both countries for an exchange that could not have been possible over the past half century.

More than 50 members of CORPS de Ballet International, an organization dedicated to the development, exploration, and advancement of ballet in higher education, and a number of local ballet professionals, spent the first two days of the four-day event learning about the history and technique of Cuban ballet from staff members of the National Ballet School of Cuba. More than just an academic exercise, the gathering served to confirm ballet as a universal, bonding language and its devotees an extended family, no matter where their geographical location.

Ariel Serrano, a Cuban native who defected in 1990 and founded the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School with his wife, Wilmian Hernandez, in 2012, provided the connection to bring the Cuban visitors to the organization’s 18th annual conference as part of an ongoing exchange he initiated between the Cuban school and his own in 2014. The participants included Serrano’s former “maestra,” Ramona de Sáa, the director of the Cuban school, as well as Miguel Cabrera, its longtime historian, and master teacher Ana Julia Bermudez.

“To me, this is the realization of my dreams,” said Serrano, who began the exchange after returning to Cuba two years ago for an international competition in which his son, Francisco, now a dancer with the Royal Ballet in London, received a gold medal. “To be able to showcase the Cuban Ballet and its legacy in the U.S. and make what was once behind closed doors more accessible is very emotional to me. It’s bigger than anything I ever thought I would be a part of.”

Less than six degrees

The network of friendships and mentorships that culminated in the collaboration proved that, if there are six degrees of separation among the general populace, there must be even fewer within the ballet world.

Catherine Horta-Hayden, the outgoing president of CORPS de Ballet and the American-born daughter of Cuban natives, studied ballet under one of the Cuban national company’s early dancers as a child in Miami. Even as a 15-year-old, she was captivated by the Cuban style and technique. Later, while earning her M.F.A. at Florida State University, she assisted Richard Sais with the founding of CORPS de Ballet International.

“I always had a dream to study the pedagogy of the Cuban ballet,” says Horta-Hayden, a professor of dance at Towson University in Maryland. “I realized what I had been taught was very rich.”

In pursuit of that dream, Horta-Hayden connected in 2003 with Margarita de Sáa White, the identical twin sister of Ramona de Sáa, who founded a school in Pennsylvania with her American husband, dancer John White, after leaving Cuba before the Revolution to settle in the U.S. At that time, Margarita had been estranged from her sister -- a Castro supporter who married one of the Cuban leader’s bodyguards -- for nearly 40 years. But in 2004 the siblings were reunited and Margarita White subsequently opened the door for Horta-Hayden to visit her sister at the national school in Havana and get first-hand exposure to the unique training system used there.

“I got enough of a nugget that I was hooked,” Horta-Hayden says. “I knew I wanted to expose this richness to the United States.”

In arranging last year’s CORPS de Ballet conference around diversity and culture – black ballerina Misty Copeland was in the news at the time – Horta-Hayden thought back to a dancer who’d been a guest artist at the school where she’d trained in Miami as a teenager, someone she thought could help tell the cultural story from a Cuban perspective. It was none other than Ariel Serrano.

She tracked him down at his school in Sarasota and invited him to participate; in turn, Serrano offered to facilitate the exchange for this year’s conference, Horta-Hayden’s last as president. Anjali Austin, a member of the dance department at Horta-Hayden’s alma mater, FSU, and the president elect of CORPS de Ballet, facilitated the conference’s location on FSU’s Ringling campus.

President of CORPS de Ballet International Catherine Horta-Hayden with Miguel Cabrera, historian for the Cuban National Ballet. STAFF PHOTO / NICK ADAMS

Horta-Hayden, Serrano, Sais, Austin and de Sáa were all in attendance this week; White, who was to have been there also, suffered a stroke in December from which she is still recovering. De Sáa has already offered to host a future conference in Havana, much to Horta-Hayden’s delight.

“Because I’m Cuban, I know as a people we will give others the shirt off our backs,” she says. “That kind of humanity is embedded in the Cuban ballet system. I hope that with this opening, we can continue to share the true story with others. It’s such an important part of the ballet world and we don’t know enough about it.”

The Cuban back story

Participants in the conference were treated to a rare and illuminating look into the history, development and refinement of the Cuban ballet technique and style. Cabrera, who has been the Cuban company and school’s historian for 46 years, spent day one elucidating the history of dance on the island, from its indigenous roots to the establishment of the first national ballet company 69 years ago.

“The history is very rich, the time very short,” he said of the Ballet Nacionale de Cuba, which remains under the direction of its founder, former ballerina Alicia Alonso, now 94 and for decades, completely blind.

The roots of the company began several years prior to the Castro regime, when Alonso, who had danced with American Ballet Theatre in New York in the early 40s, established the Ballet Alicia Alonso in Havana in 1948, with her husband, Fernando and his brother, Alberto. Ballet was so new to Cuba that of the 40 original dancers, only 13 were natives; the remainder were mostly Americans. When the Fulgencia Batista government pulled support in 1958, the troupe was forced to tour outside Cuba until after Castro took power in 1959 and pledged to make ballet accessible to the entire population and to financially support a national company and school.

Ramona De Saa, director of the Cuban National Ballet School, teaches a class of pre-professional dancers from her school and the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School, as part of the 2016 Corps de Ballet International conference at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts. STAFF PHOTO / NICK ADAMS

Castro’s dictate evolved into the system of training that still exists in Cuba today, whereby the most promising potential dancers are culled from schools across the provinces at the age of 9 or 10 and enrolled in a free eight-year, government-sponsored program that includes not only dance, but academics. The unique training system, created by Fernando Alonso, drew from the best of the existing ballet techniques in Russia, France, Italy and England, but added a distinctive “Cuban” quality that emphasized a dynamic attack, dazzling jumps, turns and balances, a magnetic performance quality and an emphasis on the relationship between men and women.

Serrano, selected as a 10-year-old in his native Santiago de Cuba, is a product of that system. In 1989, he was hand-selected by de Sáa to finish his training it Italy, along with Carlos Acosta, now perhaps Cuba’s most famous ballet son. (Acosta retired in 2015 after 17 years with the Royal Ballet.)

“It’s a network like no other and she created it,” he says of de Sáa, a dancer with the original Cuban national company who was charged with directing the school from its outset. “That changed my life. It is why I now speak three languages, why I know the world, why I am able to do this. I owe my life and my success to this woman.”

But Serrano was not allowed to seek performance opportunities outside Cuba – a permission Alonso granted only to the island’s biggest stars. Acosta and Juan Mañuel Carreño spent most of their careers in England and America, respectively, but often returned to Cuba. Without a similar option, Serrano felt he had no choice but to defect, as did countless others before and after him, many of whom secured positions with major companies in America, England and Europe. Serrano danced briefly with the Sarasota Ballet, before retiring due to injury and took a long hiatus from ballet before establishing his Sarasota school four years ago.

With the current warming of relations with the U.S., it appears Cuban dancers will soon be allowed to come and go at will; in addition, American students will, for the first time, be availed the opportunity to study at the national school in Havana. (Already the first of these has signed up to attend this year.) What that will mean for the future of the Cuban style and the Cuban company remains to be seen, but de Sáa believes it will ultimately be to the advantage of all.

“It’s going to be a positive change, but it’s going to take some time,” she says with the help of Serrano’s interpretation due to her extremely limited English. “I think when the change happens, they will be able to go, but now they will be able to come home. Those who have been allowed to do so in the past have always returned. There will be an influx of people from the outside, but that’s the whole point. Whoever comes will have to learn the Cuban style. So, in essence, the company and the school will be created in others.”

While the school will be open to all, the company has never had a non-Cuban dancer and de Sáa is more reluctant to consider that possibility. Cabrera, the keeper of the historical flame, expresses his own reservations about what the open doors may bring.

De Saa instructs students in the Cuban ballet technique during a demonstration class at the conference. STAFF PHOTO / NICK ADAMS

“To create an authentic Cuban troupe has always been the goal, which doesn’t mean being closed,” he says. “But it’s a little dangerous what is happening now, because today there is a new style -- and that is the style of money. People are going everywhere trying to get a new opportunity. Everyone wants to conquer, to have fame, to make a living. But the most important part for us is to keep our authenticity.”

As overjoyed as Serrano is to see things changing in his homeland and to be able to facilitate exchanges that will expand the Cuban ballet presence around the world, he can’t help but wish it had all happened sooner.

“There is an opening now,” he says. “I wish that opening was there for me 25 years ago. Now it is different and I am 45. The only thing I can do is open the opportunity to those who are dancing now. The challenge for the Cubans will be that yes, now they can go. But they must realize they also need to go back.”

Interested?
Miguel Cabrera, historian for the Ballet Nacionale de Cuba for more than four decades, will present a series of three lectures at the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School, 501 N. Beneva Rd., Suite 700, June 22-24, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. each day. The lectures will be accompanied by demonstrations of Cuban technique performed by pre-professional students at the school, which is under the direction of Cuban native Ariel Serrano and his wife, Wilmian Hernandez. Cost is $20 per lecture, or $55 for all. Register at 941-365-8400.
Students of Ramona de Sáa from the Cuban National Ballet School will perform with pre-professional students from the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School and Ariel Serrano’s son, Francisco, a member of the Royal Ballet, at the Sarasota Opera House on July 30. For tickets, go to http://tickets.sarasotaopera.org/single/EventListing.aspx?k=48 or call 941-328-1300. To support the ongoing exchange efforts between the Cuban National Ballet School and the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, go to www.sarasotacubanballetschool and click on the “Donate” tab.

To learn more about CORPS de Ballet International, go to www.corps-de-ballet.org.

Interested?

Miguel Cabrera, historian for the Ballet Nacionale de Cuba for more than four decades, will present a series of three lectures at the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School, 501 N. Beneva Rd., Suite 700, June 22-24, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. each day. The lectures will be accompanied by demonstrations of Cuban technique performed by pre-professional students at the school, which is under the direction of Cuban native Ariel Serrano and his wife, Wilmian Hernandez. Cost is $20 per lecture, or $55 for all. Register at 941-365-8400.

Students of Ramona de Sáa from the Cuban National Ballet School will perform with pre-professional students from the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School and Ariel Serrano’s son, Francisco, a member of the Royal Ballet, at the Sarasota Opera House on July 30. For tickets, go to http://tickets.sarasotaopera.org/single/EventListing.aspx?k=48 or call 941-328-1300. To support the ongoing exchange efforts between the Cuban National Ballet School and the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, go to www.sarasotacubanballetschool and click on the “Donate” tab.

To learn more about CORPS de Ballet International, go to www.corps-de-ballet.org.

Carrie Seidman

Carrie Seidman has been a newspaper features writer, columnist and reviewer for 30 years...and a dancer for longer than that. She has a master's degree from Columbia University Journalism School and is a former competitive ballroom dancer. Contact her via email, or at (941) 361-4834.
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Last modified: June 16, 2016
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